I was tagged by Daniel Sanchez (that’d be @DanOtick on the tweets) to write about fear, specifically my fears. The whole thing was started by Jack McLain (@jackmclain) as a way for YouTubers to take a moment to be themselves. Yes, I know this isn’t a vlog but Dan tagged me knowing I don’t do YouTube yet so here I am, being all open book. Which I already am, I think. I mean, my blog began as a running commentary about my relationship with Scout and all the good, bad and scary things that come with giving yourself to someone. But as I look back on the posts I wrote since then, there hasn’t been as many personal pieces and what better excuse to delve into my own psyche than a tag?

When I think about what I actually fear, the list is pretty small; I worry my writing sucks, that I’ll never achieve my goals and that Donald J. Trump will ruin my country. I’ve already talked about my concerns over Cheeto Hitler in the Oval Office so for the tag I’ll tell you about how sometimes I think I should delete Microsoft Word and break my own hands.

When I sit down to write, there’s a cycle of insanity that runs through my head that range from this is pure magic to remember, the first draft is supposed to be shit. I’d say my stuff falls somewhere between – hopefully closer to awesome than pooh – but those nagging fears still like to come out and dance on my ego. It’s a doubt I can’t shake. And maybe I shouldn’t try.

As much as being overly critical of myself sucks it also keeps me from losing myself to a delusion of grandeur. Honestly, I don’t want to be the Bieber of the writing world – I take pride in my talent though I’m not opposed to flashing some skin  – and the love/hate rollercoaster I’m pretty sure it’ll never happen.

There something intimate about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys). When you tell a story, be it fiction or true life, you put pieces of yourself in it and some of those pieces are painfully personal. If you pick up your favorite novel, chances are the author left bits of them self within those pages and if you ever found out which lines those were you’d probably fall over. That’s another scary-as-hell thing. I’m putting my deepest, darkest secrets out there – in code, so to say – with no idea if someone reading it will crack it and expose those parts of me to a hungry-for-blood world.

You might be all well why write of there’s so much scariness to go along with it? and if not for the fact that the stories in my head scream for freedom and threaten to drive me mad(der) of I deny them, I’d agree. But I’m not a writer because one day I woke up and said give me my pen! I’m a writer because I wake up every day and want to create. If I let the underlying fears win then I deny not only who I am but what I am and I can’t let that happen. I need to be true to myself and by bulldozing over the doubts and concerns I make that happen every day.

Fear can be a good thing – there’s a reason we as a species developed it – as long as we don’t let it rule us. While it’s a good thing when it keeps you from reenacting Jackass it’s not so good when it keeps you off the stage because singing and public spaces send a crippling cold chill down your spine (I have some experience with that, too, and let me tell you… when you push past that fear, there’s few moments in time that will ever compare).

Use fear. Don’t let it use you. Let it lead you to be better; that’s what I’ve been doing and I think it’s working out pretty damn well, if slower than I’d prefer but, hey, it’s a long road and time is on my side, right?

So, time for the tagging. I choose… Ilya M, Rachel ThompsonAdam VossenNatasha YoungNick ColaKate TiltonEthan RylettWillow Becker and Shareen Mansfield. Now, a few of my choices don’t really YouTube much but that’s okay; by tagging me, Daniel Sanchez opened it up to bloggers so I’m doing the same. If you’re not on the list and would like to do this, go for. I wanna see/read/hear what you have to say.

Oh, and if you’d like to watch Jack’s video and/or Daniel’s, here ya go though you really should click on ’em so you can like and share them. That’s the nice thing to do.

Will is an author and artist and producer (it’s only one indie short film but it’s on IMDB.com so it totes counts!) and founder of fetchentertainment.com and pain in the ass. He rather opinionated and has no problem sharing his thoughts on a variety of topics from the freakshow that was Election 2016 (how tf did Trump freaking win!?) to the importance of matching that belt to those shoes. He adores penguins and has a maniacal plan to use an army of them to take over the world and crown himself Emperor of All That Is (though he’d be happy with the Winter Russian Palace in what he would rename Mine!-Mine!-Mine!) but until then enjoys hiding away in his apartment and writing all sorts of tales that would worry that cokehead Sigmund Freud (really, we should believe he snorted for science!?) and drawing pictures of his creations.

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